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Community Connections will offer wealth of programs under one roof

Community Connections is expanding and moving to a new location. The society, officially Community Connections Society of Southeast BC, will be moving and expanding services in the new location at 209 16th Avenue North, right next to Core Fitness. The move will take place on June 1, and they will be having a grand opening in early September.

"Were really excited because it's going to pull a lot of our programs that are bouncing around the community into one location, plus some," said Kim Levie, manager of Community Connection Society of Southeast BC.

The move will bring Community Connection programs, currently dispersed among three locations around town, into a single location.

“It’s a benefit to the program because many of them work with the same clients,” she said. “There will be one location so they can take the client up the hall and introduce them to the next person that they may be working with.”

She said that currently with the three locations there are times when clients have to go from one location to the next for different services.

Community Connections offers services that support individuals and families in Cranbrook and the East Kootenay. It offers a wealth of programs including Bellies to Babies Outreach Program, Options for Sexual Health, ANKORS AIDS Network Outreach and Support Society, Family Resource Programs and much more.

Community Connections has had good success with the one-stop service hub and has used it before at the Kootenay Child Development Centre. In the first year of that centre, consultation and referrals among service providers more than doubled, she said.

The society said families continue to give positive feedback to having early childhood services in a single location.

Community Connections plans to duplicate the model in the new Cranbrook Family Connections location. Services at the location will range from pre-natal to senior support.

The new location offers a commercial kitchen in partnership with the Cranbrook Food Action Committee, as well as a boardroom and resource library with computer access. There is also a “free store” providing clothing and small household items for individuals and families.

The East Kootenay Brain Injury Society and We Care are their own societies and will also be moving in to the centre.

“They are all like minded,” she said.

Here is the full list of programs that will be offered at the location:

• Community Connections administration team

• Cranbrook Women’s Resource Centre

• Homeless Outreach Program

• Travelling Poverty Law Advocate Program

• Better at Home Seniors Support

• ANKORS

• Bellies to Babies Pregnancy Outreach Program

• Family Resource Program

• Community Action Program for Children (partnering to provide: Prenatal Baby & Me, Baby & Me, Nobody’s Perfect, Walk and Play, and Wiggle, Giggle and Grow)

• Options for Sexual Health

• East Kootenay Brain Injury

• We Care

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